Episode #949

X.mas, Dinnerstein, Vampires

Friday, December 05, 2008

This week Studio 360 gives Christmas a serious makeover. Kurt Andersen teams up with Pentagram Design to re-think the branding of Christmas. Simone Dinnerstein makes Bach’s Goldberg Variations her own. We remember the striking modernism of Leonard Rosenman’s film scores. And find out why pop culture's obsession with vampires never seems to die.

“
It's the most benevolent form of imperialism one could imagine.

— x.mas designer Michael Bierut

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The buzzword this year is change. But some things, like the traditions that surround the Christmas season, seem to remain the same. Kurt Andersen asked the design firm Pentagram to re-imagine the holiday beyond tinsel and holly. It goes something like this: drop the Santa, loose the red ...

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein tells Kurt about breaking into the classical musical world, topping the classical charts, and what it takes to make an iconic piece of music her own. She plays a selection from Bach's "Goldberg Variations" in studio.

NASA launched two Mars Rovers in 2004, not knowing how long they'd last or what they'd find, but, almost five years later, the rovers’ discoveries have exceeded all expectations. Studio 360's Sarah Lilley looks at how the Mars Rover pictures changed the way ...

With the hit movie "Twilight" and HBO's series "True Blood," vampires are back in a big way. Peter Crimmins surveys culture's long obsession with these blood suckers in an attempt to find out why the vampire motif will never die.